Go HTTP Server (Chirpy)

Context: This repository was created as an educational project to gain familiarity with building REST APIs in Go.

This is a RESTful API server built natively using Go's standard library net/http router. It implements a social-media-like backend that supports user accounts, secure authentication, posting short messages ("chirps"), and receiving external webhooks.

Features

• User Management: Create and update user accounts.
• Secure Authentication: Secure password hashing with Argon2id and stateless authentication using JSON Web Tokens (JWT) with distinct access, refresh, and revocation flows.
• Chirps: Endpoints to create, read, and securely delete short messages.
• Admin & Metrics: Tracks site hits and provides endpoints to monitor server health, check metrics, and reset the state (useful for development).
• Webhooks: Handles external webhook events (integrated with "Polka").
• Database Integration: Interacts with a PostgreSQL database using fast, type-safe queries generated by sqlc.

Tech Stack

• Language: Go 1.25+
• Routing: Standard Library net/http (leveraging modern HTTP method routing)
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Query Engine: sqlc for generating type-safe database code from SQL
• Authentication: golang-jwt and argon2id
• Configuration: godotenv for .env management

Project Structure

• api/: Contains the HTTP handlers grouped by domain (users/, chirps/, admin/, polka/, and general authentication).
• internal/database/: Auto-generated database interaction code via sqlc.
• sql/: Contains the raw database schemas and SQL queries used by sqlc to generate the internal database package.
• main.go: Application entrypoint, database initialization, route registration, and HTTP server configuration.
• go.mod / go.sum: Dependency management.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.25 or later
• A running PostgreSQL instance
• (Optional) sqlc CLI if you intend to modify the database queries.

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/vohrr/http_server_go.git
   cd http_server_go

2. Configure Environment Variables: Create a .env file in the root directory based on the following template:

   DB_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/dbname?sslmode=disable
   SECRET=your_jwt_secret_key
   POLKA=your_polka_api_key
   PLATFORM=dev

3. Install Dependencies:

   go mod download

4. Run the Server:

   go run main.go

The server will start on port 8080. You can access health check metrics at http://localhost:8080/api/healthz.